| 1 APR 2009 at 8:24am |
| Deleted User | ~~ An Icling ~~ ... Though, along with this extra polish came greater costs, and some big failures, like The Last Express and Grim Fndango. Contributing to the genre's decline. So, all in all, despite more of my favourite games falling into the latter half of the 90s, I do think 1990-1994 was a stronger period for AGs.
Yes --- 2 excellent games... but I think costly market failures ! [smiley=cry.gif]
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| 1 APR 2009 at 11:35am |
IviniaGuild Master
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Status : Offline | Too bad we can't change our vote!
I voted 90-94, but upon further review I should have gone with 95-99. I think that was the period when AGs were really pushing the limits on all fronts. The Beast Within was the game nearly everyone HAD to have and there many developers and publishers pumping out AGs. Big budgets, lots of quality for their time. Death Gate, Phantasmagoria, Beast Within, Temujin, the Interplay games. The list really goes on and on for 1995-1999.
Sure Myst was huge and it might have greatly contributed what was to follow, but the poll question is what we think is the Golden Era, not the most Influential Era, which is where I went wrong in my initial voting.
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| 1 APR 2009 at 4:40pm |
SharonBSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 310
Joined: 24 JUL 2007
Location: US, Delaware
Status : Offline | This was a hard choice. I would have liked to have chosen 1990-1999.
The 1990-1994 was the beginning of the greatest games I have ever played, while 1995-1999 was the summit of that attainment for me.
I have to list GK2 as the best game I have ever played, it was the one that evoked the most emotion out of me in a game that I ever played. Therefore, I voted 1995-1999.
Not to mention Pandora Directive came out within this time frame and I truly loved this game.
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| 1 APR 2009 at 5:19pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Location: US, Texas
Status : Offline | .
I think the problem is what Dave and I hinted at earlier. That the poll does not properly divide these "eras".
Perhaps there should have only been three: the 1980's, 1990's and 2000 to date.
According to the votes so far, most here would agree that the decade from 1990 through 1999 was the Golden Era of Adventure Gaming.
It encompassed most of the major technological and gameplay advancements still used in traditional AGs. It also covered most of the big franchises like Myst / Riven, Gabriel Knight, Monkey Island, Broken Sword, and Discworld.
There were other excellent series in the 1990's like The Jouneyman Project and Tex Murphy - along with a slew of highly creative titles including Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Sanitarium, Blade Runner, Sam & Max, Black Dahlia, and The Longest Journey.
Just behind them were many, many more good AGs like Amber: Journeys Beyond, Obsidian, Nightlong, Starship Titanic, and Shivers 1 and 2.
Cheers, Terry
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| 1 APR 2009 at 5:26pm |
Mr Innocent.Journeyman
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Status : Offline | Originally Posted By LenG (1 APR 2009 8:24am)
Yes --- 2 excellent games... but I think costly market failures ! [smiley=cry.gif]
I'm fairly certain Grim Fandango was not a market failure, since it continued to sell well for years after it was released.
It sold far below expectations during the first few months of its release though, so immediate returns were low and sadly that's all that matters to decision makers these days...
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| 1 APR 2009 at 6:24pm |
CrisGerSchattenjger
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Status : Offline | the golden age is NOW for now is when all the wonderful games of yesteryear can help birth the next great ones. I love so many from so many periods of development, but i really think that NOW is the time that is most important. great topic and fun to think about.
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| 1 APR 2009 at 6:50pm |
KsandraSchattenjger
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Status : Online | I voted 1995-1999, since most of my favourite games came out then, but I agree that the poll doesn't really divide up the 'eras' properly. The real 'golden age' probably ran from the early 90s to around 1997/98.
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| 1 APR 2009 at 7:44pm |
CulturaJourneyman
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Joined: 1 SEP 2004
Location: NL, Amersfoort
Status : Offline | Riven, Morpheus, and Obsidian. And then you have games like Sanitarium and Grim Fandango that are on a lot of peoples' favorites lists.
I rest my case. Golden years.
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| 2 APR 2009 at 12:57am |
| Deleted User | ~~ Ksandra ~~ ... The real 'golden age' probably ran from the early 90s to around...97/98.
Yes; I definitely agree !
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| 2 APR 2009 at 1:41am |
SirDaveGuild Master
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Location: US
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Terry_Penrod (1 APR 2009 5:18pm)
.
I think the problem is what Dave and I hinted at earlier. That the poll does not properly divide these "eras".
Perhaps there should have only been three: the 1980's, 1990's and 2000 to date.
According to the votes so far, most here would agree that the decade from 1990 through 1999 was the Golden Era of Adventure Gaming.
It encompassed most of the major technological and gameplay advancements still used in traditional AGs. It also covered most of the big franchises like Myst / Riven, Gabriel Knight, Monkey Island, Broken Sword, and Discworld.
There were other excellent series in the 1990's like The Jouneyman Project and Tex Murphy - along with a slew of highly creative titles including Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Sanitarium, Blade Runner, Sam & Max, Black Dahlia, and The Longest Journey.
Just behind them were many, many more good AGs like Amber: Journeys Beyond, Obsidian, Nightlong, Starship Titanic, and Shivers 1 and 2.
Following up a bit on Terry's point (& on my original one). If one weren't prepared to go with eras based on decades then the case for the era being 1994-1999 (rather than starting with 1993) is mainly because it was the commercial success of Myst that, more than any other adventure game, opened the door to the increased funding that companies were willing to put behind adventure games not to mention the resulting interest of venture capitalists in the genre. That's why so many AGs came in like a flood after 1994 and also why so many of them had relatively big budgets.
Still, it wouldn't have been a golden era if the games were crappy, but the fact is that many of them were classics and even the games that were later dismissed as Myst clones, IMO if judged fairly, for the most part weren't bad either.
Not to mention that the parallel frenzy over Doom in 1994 likewise resulted in a major outpouring of similar games. What a great period that was!! I was like a 10 year old again. (No snide remarks please )
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 2 APR 2009 at 8:34am |
| Deleted User | Still, it wouldn't have been a golden era if the games were crappy, but the fact is that many of them were classics and even the games that were later dismissed as Myst clones, IMO if judged fairly, for the most part were bad either.
I don't think you mean that, Dave !
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| 2 APR 2009 at 2:17pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Status : Offline | .
No doubt he meant "weren't bad", Len and that really is the point.
To elaborate, I only touched upon the other numerous, good to excellent commercial AGs released during the 1990's.
As Dave mentioned, there were many worthwhile "Myst clones" (like Schizm). But there was also a long list other solid titles like The Dig, The Last Express, Zork: Nemisis and Grand Inquisitor, Bad Mojo, The Blackstone Chronicles, The Dark Eye, Mission Critical, The Neverhood, Dracula: Resurrection and The Last Sanctuary, the Atlantis series, the Indiana Jones series, the Leisure Suit Larry series, the end of the King's Quest and Space Quest series, The Feeble Files, and Amerzone (which led Sokal to create Syberia 1 and 2).
Beyond all those games, there were also a few excellent hybrids like The Little Big Adventure 1 and 2 (a.k.a. Twinsen's Odyssey), Outcast, Omikron and Project Eden.
So the 1990's were rich in depth, diversity and quality with several large studios turning out dozens of great titles and a bunch of smaller ones producing consistently good releases.
Cheers, Terry
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| 2 APR 2009 at 3:21pm |
SirDaveGuild Master
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Status : Offline | Originally Posted By LenG (2 APR 2009 8:34am)
Still, it wouldn't have been a golden era if the games were crappy, but the fact is that many of them were classics and even the games that were later dismissed as Myst clones, IMO if judged fairly, for the most part were bad either.
I don't think you mean that, Dave !
Thanks Len. You're right!
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 2 APR 2009 at 8:22pm |
JKingSchattenjger
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Status : Offline | This is anecdotal, but I have personally always considered 1990-1994 to be one distinct era of computer gaming and 1995~1999 to be another. Whether this fits in with eras for adventure gaming is perhaps another matter, but I tend to draw the line between 1994 and 1995 because 1995 is when we started seeing high-resolution games, when photorealistic graphics started to become common (not that there weren't examples before), and generally when computer gaming started to enter the Pentium era. Likewise, 1990 was when MCGA/VGA graphics and SoundBlaster sound became common.
So is 1990-1994 the golden era? It was for me, anyway. There's a whole ton of excellent and high-profile adventures to be found in those five short years, and their technological richness is not so far removed from today's games as are, for example, AGI games of the 1980s. Give a game like King's Quest V a resolution of 1024x768 and some digitised music stored on DVD and its completely 2D graphics could be considered an artistic affectation (similar to how Megaman X4 and CastleVania: Symphony of the Night on the PlayStation could have been 3D but were not). I hesitate to use the term, but the 1990s ushered in "mutlimedia" games which, while not up to the standards of today, contain all the same basic components of a typical modern adventure: rich graphics, video, polyphonic music, voice, and abstracted input.
To make a case for the early 1990s in particular, though, is a little harder. I would suggest, however, that the adventure game going from being the quintessential, (relatively) mass-market genre of computer games to a niche in a sea of different genres, speaks to that. A golden era, I think, signals not only greatness in absolute terms, but also pre-eminence. While there were other genres (like the CRPG) one could argue topped the adventure in the early 1990s, there's no question the adventure had taken a backseat to action games of various kinds by the close of the 20th century.
So if you want to argue half-decades, I'd suggest that early 1990s are a better fit than the latter ones. There's no question, however, that the 1990s as a whole constitute the best years of adventure gaming---at least you'll get no argument from me.
You can't kill someone in a studio.
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| 2 APR 2009 at 9:39pm |
SirDaveGuild Master
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Status : Offline | The case I make for the start of the 'golden era' being 1994 is based on my experience during that period. I have been very involved with computers & gaming going back to the Apple II. In fact, I played the Apple II Star Trek that required loading it using a cassette tape. Almost every weekend I would go around to the various computer stores and, increasingly, the computer software stores that started opening in the early-mid 80's, and see what was cooking.
Each year there were some nice new games, but never anything really dramatic. It was just a slow increase in quality, but the CPU/video limitations and the lack of any standard system kept things fairly limited. But in 1994 things started to take a quantum leap and the concept of 'multimedia systems' was born- systems that sported the new color monitors that were being released. (Yes, there were some of these prior to 1994, but it wasn't yet a widely accepted concept without some real good software that grabbed you, The 7th Guest notwithstanding.) If you went to software stores during that period, it was Myst and Doom that were on the 'Demo' screens. People were astounded and those programs flew off the shelves. Within a year or so, Windows 95 was released and then came an explosion of games. IMO, by any measure 1994 was the beginning of an era, not the end.
The future ain't what it used to be!
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| 2 APR 2009 at 9:55pm |
CarolineJA+ Overseer
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Location: AU
Status : Offline | Some things stand out to me when reading this thread.
1. We all like talking about how we remember early games, how great they were and how rubbish today's efforts are by comparison.
2. We all have a different take on the concept of 'golden' that is personal and cannot be standardised.
3. Technology and it's uptake by the marketplace has had a huge impact on the creativity of the games which in turn both created the market for them and serviced it.
As everything evolves, can it be that video games as a species have evolved down the most successful pathway? Success being measured in sales. Which means, the kind of games I like Obsidian & Myst are like the Neanderthals - doomed to extinction.
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| 2 APR 2009 at 10:04pm |
IviniaGuild Master
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Status : Offline | Originally Posted By Caroline (2 APR 2009 9:55pm)
2. We all have a different take on the concept of 'golden' that is personal and cannot be standardised.
Actually I think it can be. Aren't Golden Eras meant to describe periods when there was much prosperity, growth, and success?
I think many here are attributing it to when THEY enjoyed the genre most as opposed to when it was really successful, which I don't think is correct.
Could be wrong though, it wouldn't be the first time.
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| 2 APR 2009 at 10:35pm |
BlountSorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 271
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Status : Offline | If it had to be a 5 year period, then 92-96 will leave many satisfied. I still think that 90-94 is way better than all the others...
Currently Playing: Dracula Origins&&&&Check out my Videogame Music Covers!! http://www.youtube.com/user/SixStringsGeek
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| 2 APR 2009 at 10:40pm |
Terry PenrodGrand Inquisitor
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Location: US, Texas
Status : Offline | .
Originally Posted By Ivinia (2 APR 2009 10:04pm)
Originally Posted By Caroline (2 APR 2009 9:55pm)
2. We all have a different take on the concept of 'golden' that is personal and cannot be standardised.
Actually I think it can be. Aren't Golden Eras meant to describe periods when there was much prosperity, growth, and success?
I think many here are attributing it to when THEY enjoyed the genre most as opposed to when it was really successful, which I don't think is correct.
Could be wrong though, it wouldn't be the first time.
I agree with you Ivinia for the most part and that's why I argued that the whole decade of 1990 through 1999 was the Golden Era of Adventure Gaming. Not only from a sales standpoint, but also in terms of expanded technology that allowed many new advancements in graphics and sound in a rapidly growing marketplace.
Prior to Myst there were no huge mass-marketed AGs. But that doesn't mean the few years leading up to that pivotal title were a waste. There were in fact quite a few superb AGs released from 1990 to 1994 and IMO, they helped pioneer the market.
Before 1990 though, there simply weren't that many PCs in private homes and as others have mentioned, color monitors, CDs and dedicated graphics cards were still too expensive for the average user. Personal web connections were also rare.
But all through the 1990's we saw an amazing explosion of technology, creativity and market expansion / game sales. Unfortunately, by 2000 the AG genre had been all but left in the dust by 3D shooters, RPGs, RTS titles, and sims - many of which also introduced MP modes, modability and other value-added features.
It is no mystery why the AG category became a niche genre. It failed to grow with the times because by nature it does not lend itself to those highly popular features.
Cheers, Terry
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